The Wytch Chandlery

Time out

2012-02-24T21:46:00.000+01:00

At last all the snow has gone and apart from doing bits of boxing in at our house and whilst waiting for the paint to arrive sometime during the middle of next week, I've taken a little time out to deal with the ever pressing need for new sheep paddocks and the fencing that entails. So that's my job for this weekend before getting back to doing the house on Monday. Yesterday and today I've been cutting down a few trees for fence posts and fire wood (nothing goes to waste if we can help it), and yes we will be planting new ones even though the ones I've cut should grow back. I think I now have about enough to do the next paddock and after checking the weather is going to be ok, tomorrow I will be out digging post holes. I do have a post hole borer but out here it is totally useless due to their being so much rock about at roughly one foot under the surface. All the post holes I did last year I had to dig by hand and chisel out rock with a crow bar and sledge hammer. Hopefully the soil should be a little easier to dig at this time of year though, when I was digging last summer it was like concrete!
Half term hols start tonight for the kids, we went along to their school today to watch their carnival, they had been making masks for it during the past week or so and were really excited about parading round the village. It was really good to see them with their class mates. The whole school only has about 30 children ranging in age from 3 to 11 and in typical French style they all ended up eating cake and sweets in the school yard. I think I have managed to talk William into helping me dig the post holes tomorrow (well one at least) but I do have to let him stop by lunchtime as he and Caitlin have to get ready to go to a birthday party in the afternoon. Honestly slave labour aint what it used to be!!!
Well I think that just about covers what's been going on for now, I will post again soon.
Cheers for now.

Can't sleep

2012-02-15T06:56:00.000+01:00

Aaagh....four hours sleep and I'm wide awake. The outside temperature has risen above freezing and renovation work at our house is setting off at a pace again. The huge list of things that need to be done as soon as possible is weighing on my mind and as soon as I stir in my sleep I start thinking about it again and that's the end of any rest! I can't believe I'm sitting here thinking about boxing in pipes at 3.30 in the morning, still there's no point fighting it that just leads to frustration and the grumps. Best to just get on with the day and not think too much about it.
     Thought we were going to run out of firewood this week but a very kind neighbour has helped us out. This is the first winter we've had full log burning heating going and we slightly underestimated our usage. When we re-order this year we will get considerably more for our September delivery. Guess it's better to have too much than too little and it's not as if we don't have the room to store it.
     It was Valentines day yesterday and just to show romance isn't dead I got Sophie some coloured LED spotlights for the landing....and she got me a bathroom light with shaver point. You see romance is alive and well....who needs chocks and roses when you can have electrical fittings. Oh crap I'd better add fitting the light to my list of jobs to do.
     I've been working on a sort of mini altar whilst the weather prompted enforced renovation inactivity. I've made simple clay God and Goddess figures and sorted an old hollow bit of branch that I've cut to make a backdrop/vase holder. I should add here that the whole thing when complete will be about 40cm wide by 30cm deep. I also made a small clay pot for burning incense in, all that I need to do when I next get the time is make a clay base to put over a wooden base and fix everything together and add finishing touches. I will post a photo of it when it's done (this may be a few months away due to obvious other priorities). My intention is that it will live in our bedroom once we can move back into the house. We don't need it in the living room as we have a deep stone window sill that we use as the family one which is where the kids put things they find when we're out walking or special stones or fresh water mussel shells they find in our bit of river.
Right that's enough chat for now.....I can hear the coffee jar calling me with increasing urgency from the kitchen.
Cheers for now.

Can't do anything

2012-02-12T21:05:00.001+01:00

Greetings dear readers,
Well the main topic of discussion is still the weather, minus 20 degrees overnight is the coldest we've had thus far. Nothing has really been happening apart from trying to stay warm. I have to say I'm beginning to go a little stir crazy now with so little that can be done. The highlight of the day is breaking the ice on the animals drinking water. Oh I did manage to do a couple of hours painting with William (my son) in my workshop yesterday afternoon, he wanted to paint some of the clay pots and models he'd made previously, then he got the design bug and made a very artistic display to sell some of his wands that he's been making. It took me about four hours to get the workshop to warm up enough for him to work, stoking the fire and hanging old blankets over the entrance to the staircase and over the ill fitting front door to stop the heat from escaping. Still we did have fun, even though he fleeced me for a euro for a wand!
The only other stuff I've been doing is cutting holes and fitting spotlights in the landing ceiling at our house. As you may remember we're staying at Sophie's dads house whilst ours is being updated and re-plastered. The builders have been doing a sterling job even through this cold spell, although the re-plastering did come to halt when the temperature dropped. Everything is now frozen solid because all the radiators were removed and the house has no heat at all. There is talk that next week it's supposed to start getting milder, well the forecast shows nothing below -3 at the moment and even rising to +2 although more snow showers are also forecast. Still fingers crossed we may be moving away from the worst of winter and things can start being done again. Let's hope so there's loads to be done!

And still it snows.

2012-02-05T17:58:00.000+01:00

Ok I've just about had enough of this snow stuff now. It was very pretty and fun for a couple of days but now its just freezing and making smallholding life just plain hard! Still I shouldn't complain, one of the reasons for moving to this part of France was that you got four distinct seasons a year and this is just how winter should be. Having said that, yesterday I was trying to make a wash stand type thing for our new bathroom. I was working in the barn in minus teperatures all day and I couldn't feel my fingers and I was cold to the core even with loads of layers on. Apart from that I've mainly been working on the etsy shop and posting some new stuff with only the odd trip outside to feed animals and put out un-frozen water, even on these short trips it was cold enough to make my finger nails hurt. Sophie (my fab wife) and I did manage to get to Limoges a couple of days ago for the twenty week scan on our impending addition to the familly. Everything was good and we found out that we're expecting our second son. The kids were delighted but sophie has had to deal with the obvious question of how will he get out of mummys tummy. Sometimes the truth is the best solution even when the kids faces were a picture, besides there's no point saying anything else when you keep livestock, nature will soon undermine any silly explanations you give them.
Happy Imbolc for a coulpe of days ago to those of you who follow the path, I hope the weather is being kinder to you where ever you are...but keep cheerful the sun is returning, snowdrops are up here (well were before being covered in snow) and spring is only a few weeks away.

And then the snow came.

2012-02-01T17:07:00.000+01:00

So the neighbour was right. It started snowing on the night of 30th of Jan. The enclosed photos were taken on the 31st. Having checked with the French weather forecast it seems we now have up to two weeks where the temperature isn't going to get above freezing and down to -10 some nights. So as you can guess after playing in the snow for a while the novelty has worn off and it's become just flippin cold. I have been spending my time dealing with the continuing effects of a cold given to me (with love) by the kids and at last getting my etsy shop up and running. So if you want to see some of the things I make you can now, the link is on this page. I'm just posting wands at the moment but other items will be put on in due course. Oh and if you'd like to buy something please don't hold back (big smile). Right that's the last of the sales pitch I promise. I've also been writing off to various mayors and fair organisers to start getting solid bookings for my stall this summer. This is just the first step because as with everything out here loads of paperwork has to be done before anything happens!

Right here's the photos they show the view down the lane behind my workshop, a view from part of our field, a part of our stretch of the river and some of our sheep and Fred the dog.

Witch Bottles Done

2012-01-26T22:12:00.000+01:00

Greetings again. Well the witch bottles I mentioned in the last post are now permanently fixed in the stone wall by the front door to our house, we even put a shiny new one cent coin near one of them so that if they are discovered sometime in the future they should get some idea of when they were put in. The base coat of plaster is on and awaiting the new finishing coat and all that revolting crepi is disappearing from the house.
We eventually made two bottles one to give general protection and deflect negative energy the other to attract positive energy for love, harmony and peace, in general a happy home.

Witch bottles can be made from any size or shape bottle be it glass or ceramic.The contents are chosen for their magical associations and/or sympathetic intentions in relation to the desired purpose of the bottle. I should mention here that it is not just a case of dumping the ingredients in a bottle and shoving it in a wall all the ingredients are added in a ritual environment and charged with the full might of the creators focused intent.
In our case we used two small glass jars about 6cm tall with cork stoppers that we found in a local store. We wanted them to be small so that we didn't have to disturb too much of the old stone and clay wall when placing them. They were filled with a variety of ingredients, I won't say exactly what went in to each but the first one did include myrrh, frankincense, rosemary, bent nails, thorns, sea salt and apple vinegar. The second included cloves, rose, basil, lavender, cinnamon, vervain. Once the bottles were filled and corked we sealed them with wax and placed them in the wall as close to the main front door as was possible. They should remain effective as long as they stay undisturbed and intact.
I have recently written a short article on witch bottles and have put a link to it on this blog for anyone who may be interested.
Cheers for now.

Chance for a Witch Bottle

2012-01-15T23:01:00.000+01:00

We've had the builders in this week and they will be here for the next two month doing alterations to the house. We're in the process of dragging our 17th century French house into the 21st century and making it a more family friendly home. This could sound like I'm some sort of ancient building vandal but all it really means is that were having some new stud partition walls erected and a bathroom fitted on the first floor in stead of the old one that is buckled onto the back of the kitchen on the ground floor. Oh and a new staircase fitted from the first floor to the attic, I say new but we're replacing a really bad pine staircase that was fitted when the original renovation of the property was done. The rest of the work is re-plastering just about all the internal walls. The French have some weird sort of love thing for a violently textured wall finish called crepi, it's bl**dy awful stuff, it's like having cheese graters for a walls, and this is on the inside!!
With all the work going on it does mean that I now have an opportunity to put a witch bottle into the structure of the house near the front door and I will be doing this during the coming week. For those of you who may not know what a witch bottle is or what it contains I shall endeavour to take some photos and give details of how to make one in my next post.
The weather has turned colder over the past week it got down to -7 the other night but the mornings are great, cold and bright and frosty just as I like them in winter, but it has to be said that when the sun gets up it is beginning to get some heat back into it a small indicator that spring really isn't far away. Walking beside the hedgerows it's good to see so many bushes and trees coming into bud, it would be easy at times when the sun is shining to think we've had winter but as our neighbour keeps telling me we will get snow.

Quick Weekend Update

2012-01-08T15:34:00.001+01:00

Well for a dreary damp weekend the kids have been occupied being creative in my workshop. We banked up the fire then got messy with the paints. it's great to have somewhere where you don't have to worry too much about spillages and over exuberant painting splashes! Mummy had some lovely paintings of flowers and rainbows done specially for her, rainbows have always been a firm favourite in their drawing and painting.Then when all painted out we got out the clay and started modelling, Some great Goddess statues were created amongst the mass of pen pots and dinosaurs. Still all good things must come to an end and now we have had to resort to watching one of the kids films for the sixteenth time. Right got to go now one of the kids friends has turned up so I'd better get back to child minding and not being on the computer.

Something Strange?

2012-01-05T14:31:00.000+01:00

I think anyone taking a walk through our field and down to the river will probably think there is something strange going on. I have two rams skulls hanging from the oak tree in the field (complete with fab curling horns..one of the reasons for keeping the kind of sheep we do) and a deer skull with short antlers hanging from a tree by the path down to the river. There is nothing strange going on (well no more than usual) these skulls are in the middle phase of being prepared for sale. The first phase was burial for 4 months, except for the deer skull which came from a deer that died by the river after receiving a wound from the Chasse (Hunting is huge in these parts with so many wild boar and deer about). I let nature take its course and retrieved it when there was virtually nothing left of the body. The second phase is letting the skulls weather for a few months and the final phase is several weeks in a bleach solution to ensure they are as clean as can be. I have a rams skull in bleach at the moment, in fact it should be ready to take out now, I'll do that tomorrow. That skull was given to me by a fellow smallholder who retrieved it from an old barn so we don't know how long it had been there but it could well have been many years. This one's only got short horns but they have a nice curve to them. When they are ready I will stick them on the etsy shop. If the weather remains wet I think tomorrow I will start making some more of our hand made incense sticks they got a lot of attention at the last fair and I think we will put these on etsy too. Right I'm off to put some mastic gum on my wellies, I discovered my left boot was riddled with thorn holes when I was in the ditches this morning. The thorns are nasty out here they seem longer and sharper than in the UK, I know they're probably not but I've been got by several this year, you cant see them when they get stuck in you, you can feel them though! I had one in my heel that took about three days to get to come out and when it did it must have been at least half an inch long and like a hypodermic needle...ouch!

The Wheel Turns

2012-01-05T12:38:00.000+01:00

So the wheel turns, Yule and the New Year are behind us and already the change in daylight hours is obvious. I'm not having to coop up the chickens till 5.20pm, it was 4.30 only a few weeks ago. Thoughts are turning once again to construction work on hutches pens and sheep folds ready for this years additions to our livestock holdings. We will be adding geese, ducks and rabbits this year as well as rearing chickens for meat alongside our already established egg producing flock. I completed a new shelter for the sheep last week, it's ended up looking like some sort of a cross between a Bedouin tent and a yurt but at least it will give the ewes the shelter they require at lambing especially as we haven't had any snow yet and expect some over the next couple of months. (yes were expecting early lambs as we ran the ram with the ewes all last year). Will it ever stop raining? We've had just about continual rain for the past couple of weeks, the river at the bottom of our land has risen about four/five feet (Its ok our house is a good 60 feet or so above this level). I saw a family of baby coypu huddled on an island made from an old tree stump where the lower bank used to be when I was walking the dog the other morning. Flooding by the river is not a great issue, yes it has been known to rise another six feet above where it is at the moment but that part of our land is intentionally left fairly wild except for a cleared grassed area and a stone circle and it is no problem if this floods (you have to walk up a fairly steep path through some woods to get from this area onto our main bit of land). Where water can be an issue is when it runs down the lane towards our properties. There are ditches and drains but in heavy rain the ditches can overflow onto the lane and so this morning after putting the kids on the school bus at 8.15am I could be found welly high in mud and water clearing out ditches in the rain! Which brings me to where I am now, sitting on the bed getting warm and writing this.
Hope you all had a great festive season and the new year brings you much to make you happy.

Goodbye Auntie Sheep

2011-12-28T21:04:00.000+01:00

What a sad morning. We have had three hard nights of frost and last night was the end for Auntie sheep. Auntie came to us when she was already 9 or 10 years old and was never for the pot, no auntie was here to enjoy her twilight sheepy time on our smallholding more as a pet than a working ewe. Auntie by the way is the black one in the picture. Auntie was laid to rest with greenery tributes from our children and an oak sapling was planted to mark the spot. I am always amazed how well our children deal with the realities of living on a smallholding they certainly enjoyed the turkey and they knew where that came from! William could not resist taking a photo of Auntie in the hole with the camera he got as a present..mm.. could be a photo journalist in the making!.. Oh well the wheel of life keeps turning and we now look forward to lambing in the near future and the planning begins for other new livestock that will join us in the Spring:

Marche de Noel

2011-12-20T23:39:00.000+01:00

With a 6.30am start on a pitch black 10th of December morning the intrepid author of this blog set off to to his first Christmas market in France. Peering through steamed up windows of the slightly battered Renault Kangoo van he followed the winding ditched lanes through the countryside always aware hew could meet a boar or deer round any bend (or indeed have one jump on his roof and add another dent to the collection!) to the venue. The fair was in an old barn/industrial unit all bedecked with boughs of pine and strings of Christmas lights, very rustic and quite pretty even if the industrial hot air blower did push more smoke than heat into the atmosphere with the inevitable result that this was going to be a long cold day. There were about twenty stalls in all with the usual ones selling wines, cheeses, breads, hand made pottery, jewellery, strange rock art (thats art on rocks not something exciting), knives (the French love knives) and an artist who I feel should have laid off the Absinthe long before picking up a paintbrush, And then there was me, tucked in the corner, the slightly mad Englishman selling incense and stuff. Joking apart it was a fab day, the people were really friendly and helped me out when my French let me down by prompting me in very good English much to my shame. As to be expected the morning was quite slow and just when it seemed it was picking up it died for the two hour lunch period. In fact I did more sales between 6pm and 7pm than during the whole of the rest of the day. Still the music being played in the background was a really good mix of English/American blues rock, something good to tap your toes to whilst trying to stay warm, and the visit by my wife and kids in the mid afternoon with fresh supplies of coffee and nibbles kept me going.
Although it was a long day, not getting home till after 10pm, it was a fab day and it has given me some useful indicators as to the direction my business should take in the future. Bring on the markets and fairs in the new year and I must try and get our Etsy shop up and running over the Christmas hols. The photo enclosed shows part of the stall, the bit of another stall you can see in the left was selling fantastic breads and pastries which I had to look at all day whilst trying not to spend all the profits on sticky goodies!

Aaah Christmas or Yule to you and me.

2011-12-09T21:05:00.000+01:00

Since becoming a smallholder a year ago I have today had to despatch three turkeys ready for Xmas with another two to do on Sunday. I would have done them on Saturday but I'm doing that fair. I really don't like killing livestock but if i'm going to east meat i feel I shouldn't complain about the not so nice side of rearing your own produce. After getting them ready for freezing I can only say I'm glad there's a little time until I have to eat them because at the moment the idea turns my stomach. Hark.. listen to the soft ex city dweller.
On the brighter side I am now ready to go to the fair...yippee..I've been up late at night for the past week doing labels, signs, displays, and sorting out some useful phrases in French etc..etc..But Now I'm READY (at last). I have a very good neighbour who does French translation and i asked him to check over some of the things I'd done..he nearly fell off his seat laughing at some of the awful bloomers I'd made. Guess I'd better not stop taking those lessons just yet!!

The Wytch Chandler

2011-12-05T16:46:00.000+01:00

Hi and welcome to my blog.

Here’s a little about me and what I do. I moved to France from the UK about a year and a half ago with my wife and two young children. We decided to live the good life and get closer to nature so now we have a 5 acre small holding with a 17^th century farmhouse deep in the countryside in the Limousin region. Sounds grand I know but when you compare house prices etc with the UK you realise you get a lot more for your money out here. We try to be as self sufficient as we can be without going to extremes and are enjoying a steep learning curve with regards to cultivation and animal husbandry . Hard work at times but great fun and we’re all enjoying doing things that we’d never thought we’d do! I’m a witch and have been for over forty years and I used to be actively involved with the Pagan community in Yorkshire and Gloucestershire before our move including editing pagan magazines, organising camps etc as well as selling pagan merchandise at suitable events. Some things I couldn’t give up when we moved and I find myself now as a registered French market trader for incense, candles, walking sticks and staffs and other not quite blatantly pagan goods. I make wands and some of the incense I sell, as well as the staffs and runes and I will be selling these on line along with the totally blatant pagan items as soon as I have got the web shops set up. So this is where I am at the moment, getting the stock and stall ready for my first fair in France this Saturday. The pictures I’ve posted show my workshop. It’s a fab place to work and seems to have become the place where people like to sit and have a coffee!